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Wednesday, March 25, 2015

Choosing Applied Sociology

After working in the policy world in Massachusetts for many years,
going back to graduate school in Sociology felt like going to a candy store in the country* every day, where I could read interesting books, have stimulating
conversations, learn how to do research, and then write about it. I admired my professors, and I was kind of
amazed that their job was to take me seriously and support my development as a
scholar. Later, while I was working on my dissertation, I got a job teaching
part-time in a local university while a full-time professor went out on leave.
It was challenging; it was fun; and it was an incredible opportunity to experiment
with pedagogy. I learned that I loved teaching, and over the next two years, got
hired to teach a wide range of sociology classes – about families, sex and
gender, feminism, work, and women and leadership – at several other Boston universities.

But the more I learned about the full-time tenure-track teaching world, the
more I realized it was just not my thing. First off, I couldn’t imagine “starting
over” again at the bottom of the career ladder, with what could be six grueling
years of slogging towards tenure. Nor could I imagine the idea of a job for
life – the promise of tenure – working with the same folks for the next few
decades (apologies to my mythical could-have-been colleagues!). Call me fickle,
but I enjoyed changing jobs every few years, having new and varied challenges,
and working with a diverse array of people.

Learning on the job

By luck, while I was taking research methods classes, I was
offered a small consulting job to evaluate the impact of a well-established
training program on its activist participants. Here was an opportunity to put
my newfound knowledge to use. Except
that no one was teaching how to evaluate social programs in sociology graduate
programs! I did have some experience
with “program evaluation”. When I was directing a statewide child care project
that was federally funded, some guy was hired by the state to evaluate my
program. He met with me once at the beginning of the project, and at the end, he
wrote a glowing report.

Every so often,
I wondered if he’d be back. In the end, he really had no basis upon which to
evaluate the strengths and challenges the project was facing – and believe me,
there were plenty. But I wasn’t going to complain if he was phoning it in!Since I had no idea how to evaluate a program, I hired someone who did, and for the next few years, she trained me and my sociologist friend, Claire, in how to use research skills to evaluate social programs. I never intended to continue doing this "applied" work for the next 20 years, but that is essentially what has happened. When I first started, I wasn't very good at it, and I thought it was boring. But a couple decades later, I have learned a whole lot about how to do it well, and (luckily) find this work fascinating.

Making a choice to be an applied sociologist

The choice to be an “applied sociologist” is not a rejection or devaluation
of academic sociology. It is a choice that is, in part, a function of economic
imperatives – a tight job market, especially if you don’t want to move - but
also a choice to make a different kind of difference. To impact the social
world through organizations that are impacting people: through service, through organizing, and
through education and advocacy, in the areas of public health, education, urban
planning, climate change, arts and arts education and many more.

I have learned that it makes me happy to use the research and
writing skills I learned in graduate school as a tool to help promote social
change, through the vehicle of strengthening nonprofit organizations and
improving philanthropic decision-making. Once considered the stepchild of the
field, applied sociology is now gaining prominence, but largely because the
economy has not produced the plethora of academic sociology jobs once predicted.

“Close to a perfect match”

In a 2013 article in Inside Higher Ed, Roberta Spalter-Roth, from
the American Sociological Association, commented that “In sociology, there is
close to a perfect match between available jobs and new Ph.D.s” (https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/08/06/sociology-job-market-continues-recover-steadily). But this is only if you factor in the many government,
nonprofit and research analyst jobs out there that require the skills and sociological
perspectives learned in graduate school. Spalter-Roth notes that these jobs often pay more
than university teaching positions, but graduates rarely know about them and
professors may even discourage their students from entering these professions.

This year, my applied sociology friends and I agree that the
“applied route” seems to be gaining some traction, with increased interest from
universities and professional associations. A number of us have been on a (minor)
speaking circuit, talking to graduate students at the request of sociology
departments about choosing applied sociology as a career. And this year, the
Sociology Department of a major research university, Boston College, hired me
to teach a course on Evaluation Research. (Kudos to BC Sociology for recognizing the
importance of this avenue for sociologists-in-training!)

Panel at Sociologists for Women in Society: Choosing Applied Sociology (sponsored by the Career Development Committee)

Given this increased interest, and what I believe is a need for
sociologists to promote the health and well-being of organizations and
communities using research and sociological principles, I organized a panel on
this topic at an annual meeting of my favorite national feminist sociology
organization, Sociologists for Women in Society.

The panel included three
distinguished applied sociologists from the DC area, where the meeting was held,
who presented about why they chose this route of practice, what they do and for
what populations, and how they incorporate sociological principles into their
work, framed by a race, class, gender lens.

The speakers, all based in DC, included Tekisha Everette, a lobbyist for the American
Diabetes Association; Andrea Robles, a research analyst at the Corporation for
National and Community Service; and Chantal Hailey, who ran evaluation
projects at the national Urban Institute and elsewhere, and is currently a
sociology doctoral student at NYU. One other panelist, Rita Stephens, was not
able to make it because of a blasted snowstorm, but she would have rounded out
the panel very nicely as she works at the State Department. The three women
spoke to a standing and sitting room only crowd at the meeting, followed by
numerous informal conversations, attesting to the fact that there is a hunger
for this kind of work.

In my next couple of blog posts, I will allow these amazing
women’s words speak for themselves. I hope that their words stimulate a
dialogue about the value of and choice to pursue sociology outside of the
academy. Based on the remarkable response at this meeting and in classrooms
where I talk about applied sociology, my sense is that sociologists want to
know about alternatives to working within academia. The words of these speakers
inspired me and I hope they inspire you.

“I
was interested in doing applied work that could lead to positive social change. Somehow, it seemed like I wanted to be part of making the world a better place."Sociologist, Andrea Robles Corporation for National and Community Service

Check out this excellent blog post by Dr Zuleyka
Zevallos, Research and Social Media Consultant with Social Science Insights in Australia, called What is Applied Sociology?, published in Sociology at Work:Working for Social Change:http://sociologyatwork.org/about/what-is-applied-sociology/

*Brandeis University, which is actually in the suburb of Waltham,
Massachusetts, but looked like the country to this city girl!

3 comments:

Great blogpost, Mindy! I've enjoyed being on this "applied sociology" journey with you for the past 20 years! Having grown up with many family members who worked in academia, I can genuinely say that I have never regretted my decision to apply my sociology training in the nonprofit and philanthropic sector. It's an exciting time to be an applied sociologist. I'm so glad you sense a growing momentum and interest among the next generation of sociologists. We certainly need to tell this story and promote the value of applied sociology to counteract the field's malaise as expressed in a recent Chronicle of Higher Education article on How Sociologists Made Themselves Irrelevant http://chronicle.com/article/How-Sociologists-Made/150249/

So glad to be on this journey with you too! 20 year? Wow. And thanks for including the article in your post, Claire. Totally agree about the critical importance of applied work, and there's so much more of it going on than meets the eye.

Arbor Consulting Partners

About Me

Musings of a sociologist who would like to see major social and economic changes in her lifetime, but like Emma Goldman, says "If I can't dance I don't want to be part of your revolution."
Co-Principal of Arbor Consulting Partners (www.arborcp.com), researcher on arts education, early childhood education policy, public health issues and more, teacher of evaluation research and gender/race and work issues.Partners (www.arborcp.com)